2plus2equals5
by Lassiter
Summary: Bobby takes long showers. John/Rogue.


**Disclaimer**: Characters and settings = not mine. Ask Fox and Marvel for details.  
**Notes**: dirty_diana betaed. Mad propz to her, yoj.  


**2+2=5  
**

The plan was to hang out together before dinner, and they were both draped over John's bed, waiting for Bobby to finish showering.  
  
It was a tight squeeze, and if asked later they wouldn't quite be able to say why one of them didn't just move to the other bed. John might have shrugged, and maybe Rogue would have tried to incorporate some English class into it and talk about absurdism and how it didn't matter in the end anyway.  
  
Legs tangled over the covers, she was lying stomach-down with one arm draped over his thigh, as he sat up against the headboard and played with fire.  
  
Balls of flame. Rings of fire. Triangles and chains and fiery stick figures. John said, "Look. It's Homo sapien. On fire. It's a flaming homo."  
  
"Ha, ha ha," commented Rogue. "Ha."  
  
The stick figures reverted to random geometrical shapes. "That was so sincere, Marie."  
  
"Only because you're that funny, St. John."  
  
"Marie."  
  
"St. John."  
  
"_Marie._"  
  
"_St. John._"  
  
Then they stopped, because as much as they hated their names, it was still silly to wage insult battles with only 'Marie' and 'St. John' as arsenal.  
  
The flames curled back into the lighter and John pocketed it, which, in retrospect, was pointless. The Zippo would be out again soon anyway.  
  
They could hear the shower running through the bathroom door. John told Rogue that usually you could hear Bobby singing Led Zeppelin, too, and that the only reason they couldn't right now was because Bobby didn't want to look stupid in front of her. So maybe she should come around more often.  
  
"I'll think about it," said Rogue, half into the pillow.  
  
"You do that."  
  
"I said I would, didn't I?"  
  
The fuzziness in her voice suggested the onset of sleep, and John wondered whether she really was sleepy or just faking it so she wouldn't have to talk to him. But she was literally all over him anyway, so John wasn't quite clear on what the point of that would be. Maybe he just made a nice cushion.  
  
He poked her head.  
  
"What?" she muttered.  
  
"You don't drool when you sleep, do you?"  
  
"What? _No._"  
  
John began tugging at the pillow, pulling it out from under her head. Rogue pressed her head down against it in protest, but in the end, John rendered her pillowless and emerged as the victor.  
  
This was a situation, she thought, that required remedying.  
  
Rogue put her head on John's stomach.  
  
The morbid side of John wondered what Bobby would do if he came out of the bathroom right now.  
  
As fate would have it, Bobby didn't. With sunlight through windows and faint cheery voices from down the hall, there was only the lazy glow of Sunday afternoons. The feeling of stasis during inbetween times.  
  
"I used to like you when you were new, y'know," said John, because he never liked silences anyway, and especially not silences with pretty girls. He wondered whether the subject was appropriate as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but too late now. Maybe this was why the furthest he got with girls this semester was a sloppy make-out session with Jubilee, and they had both been more than slightly tipsy at the time. It didn't exactly have 'John 3 Rogue' stamped all over it, but at least Rogue now knew how virile he was, right? Right?  
  
"You made no secret of it," said Rogue.  
  
"What?"  
  
"That you liked me."  
  
It was true. After John's foiled attempt to impress her on their first meeting, he had shamelessly third-wheeled the happy couple, ignoring the less-than-subtle hints from Bobby. Always, as soon as he finished defrosting his hair, John would be on them again, undeterred. The rejection had turned into a challenge, a game, and John didn't like to lose.  
  
Pretending to be catty, Rogue said, "So you don't anymore?"  
  
He wasn't quite sure how to answer that. After a pause, he settled on, "I'm a different man than I was before."  
  
John ended up playing with her fingers. She told him to stop it with the lighter and her fingers were the closest to his ever-restless hands. He ran his fingers over hers as if memorising their shape, pulling them as if checking the tensile strength, checked how far they could bend backwards and forwards. Sarcastically she asked him if he had ADD and if he needed some valium or something, and he told her the proper term was ADHD. She said maybe she was thinking of OCD instead, and he just shrugged.  
  
"Leather gloves are cool," said John.  
  
"They're not really leather," said Rogue. "And even if… hey. Hey. What are you doing?!"  
  
John, who had been attempting to pull her glove off, made a cry of protest when she closed her hand into a fist. He grabbed her arm when she tried to take it away.  
  
"Don't touch me!"  
  
"Um," was John's response, gesturing with a free hand at their position.  
  
"You know what I mean."  
  
"I'm not going to touch you."  
  
"Stop it!"  
  
"I'm not going to—stop squirming like that; you'll bust my kneecap. Rogue, look… Rogue—ow! Hey, just stop being a psycho for a minute and look at me!"  
  
"Psycho. Right." But she quieted, and she looked. There was suspicion in her eyes, and what he hoped was assurance in his.  
  
John said, "I'm just going to…"  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"…just going to…"  
  
"John?"  
  
He uncurled her fingers with uncharacteristic tenderness, running his thumb along the inside each time. Rogue was nothing but wary, and John studiously ignored this as he continued pulling the glove off her hand.  
  
"John, maybe we shouldn't…"  
  
And there was that notorious deadly skin, appearing centimetre by centimetre. You couldn't help but appreciate something you rarely saw. For a moment John considered just quickly touching her. Just a brush. A dab. A peck on the inside of her elbow, then pull back before the whole Poison Ivy thing kicked in.  
  
John pulled the glove over his own hand. It was a bit tight, but whatever. It would do for now.  
  
His hand looked rather nice in black leather.  
  
"What are you doing?" asked Rogue.  
  
"Something I've always wanted to do" sounded lame. It wasn't quite true either. Still, "You know what? I don't know, but don't kill me or anything" wasn't any better. So John didn't say anything and just got on with it.  
  
He laid a finger across her lips, leaned down, and kissed her.  
  
Sort of.  
  
It was only his lips on his finger on her lips. It was only this freeze frame like someone pressed the pause button. Maybe Bobby and Rogue already found a way around the kissing, but this was the best John could come up with under the circumstances.  
  
He kept his eyes open. So did she, if only to stand her ground. She looked absolutely fazed.  
  
Good.  
  
Rogue's lips parted as if to speak, causing John's finger to slip. Their lips brushed together, just for a moment, and she gasped in what John thought was entirely too Victorian a manner.  
  
"John, are you—"  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
Slowly, John took away his finger. There was only a wavering centimetre of air between them. If this was a game, was he winning yet?  
  
"I thought you said you didn't like me anymore," said Rogue.  
  
"You're a smart girl. Figure it out yourself."  
  
"Are you going to move?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"What if Bobby sees?"  
  
"If Bobby sees, then Bobby sees. You didn't seem too concerned with him when you were lying on my stomach."  
  
She wet her lips and that looked like invitation enough for John to catch a second kiss, but she was probably just nervous. Nix that. They'd just have to settle for lying on a bed practically on top of each other in a haze of unresolved sexual tension.  
  
In the bathroom, the shower stopped running.  
  
"Finally, huh?" said Rogue.  
  
John didn't know if she was talking about Bobby or them.  
  
When Bobby emerged from the bathroom, Rogue was sitting cross-legged in the middle of John's bed, picking at a seam in her glove. John was lying down across Bobby's bed, click clack clicking his Zippo open and close. There was a time when Bobby would have been pissed at John's presence, but now all he could muster was a vague "Oh. Okay." John, through sheer stubbornness and determination, had worked himself into their equilibrium.  
  
"At least all that time in there seems to have paid off," John commented, appraising Bobby from head to toe. "Immaculate as always."  
  
"I'm glad it meets your approval," said Bobby dryly. He kissed Rogue on the top of her head. "Hey."  
  
"Hey yourself," she said.  
  
"So," said John. "Shall we?"  
  
"We shall."  
  
And despite being the initiator of departure, John remained sitting on the bed and watched them leave. He caught Rogue's gaze on her way out and winked at her. She blushed and looked away.  
  
"Allerdyce," Bobby called out from the hall. "You coming or what?"  
  
For a moment he considered saying no, just for the hell of it. Just for kicks.  
  
"Hey, John?"  
  
He slid off the bed and sauntered after them out the door.  
  


[end.]


End file.
